NY Times: Electronic Voting 1.0, and No Time to Upgrade. The phenomenal reliability of the systems we trust for banking, communication, and everything else rests on two bedrock principles. One is the universal understanding in the technology world that nothing works right the first time, and maybe not the first 50 times. [Tomalak's Realm]
Author: Vince Kimball
Affordable and Essential Christmas Gift Ideas for the Computer Geeks
Affordable and Essential Christmas Gift Ideas for the Computer Geeks. A list of considerably affordable (most under $30) and indispensable Christmas gift ideas that all techies and computer geeks will appreciate. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]
How to Sell Your Boss
How to Sell Your Boss. Selling your boss is critical to your success. If you can’t get your boss’s approval when you need it, you are not going to go very far in your career.As the president of a company, I spend a good deal of time listening to proposals. Those doing the pitching usually… Continue reading How to Sell Your Boss
Secondary Screening: Secret Law News
Secondary Screening: Secret Law News. Stephen Aftergood, the seemingly indefatigable researcher behind the Secrecy Project at the Federation of American Scientists, has a fantastic piece in Slate today about secret laws and the Transportation Security Administration. I've written about the abuse of the “Sensitive Security Information” designation here on this blog and for Wired News,… Continue reading Secondary Screening: Secret Law News
Entrepreneurs: what not to do
Entrepreneurs: what not to do. Entrepreneur.com “What not to do.” A seasoned entrepreneur reveals the 17 most common mistakes startups make and how to avoid them — plus the five things you MUST do to ensure success. [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
FoxPro gets nice writeup on DevX
FoxPro gets nice writeup on DevX. DevX: Visual FoxPro 9.0: Still Here, Still Relevant. Ken Levy gave me a demo of this last week. It's a very impressive tool. Has visual inheritance down to the button level where Visual Studio only has inheritance down to the form level. Among other things. Someday I'll tell you… Continue reading FoxPro gets nice writeup on DevX
IT Conversations is looking for a business model
IT Conversations is looking for a business model. WebTalkRadio discusses IT Conversations business model dilemma (Doug Kaye is asking his listeners for feedback about how to keep it all going). I am a HUGE fan of Doug's. His stuff is first rate. I don't have any good answers for him either. It's hard to get… Continue reading IT Conversations is looking for a business model
Cool “blox” for your blog
Cool “blox” for your blog. Laszlo is doing really interesting stuff for blogs. Instead of doing an entire system like Blogger or TypePad they are making little “blox” that you put on your blog's sidebar. They can be a photo block, a sound block, a link block, or a Weather block. Hey, where's the search… Continue reading Cool “blox” for your blog
U.K. government hit with another large computer failure
U.K. government hit with another large computer failure. As many as 80,000 civil servants at the U.K.'s Department of Work and Pensions had to deal with what is being described as the biggest computer crash in government history on Monday. [Computerworld News] [Privacy Digest: Privacy News (Civil Rights, Encryption, Free Speech, Cryptography)]
Mergers and customer dissatisfaction
In
general, customers get a raw deal when companies merge. That's the
conclusion of a Business Week article with the provocative title “Why
Customers Hate Mergers” (12/6/2004). The article is based on a
University of Michigan/Business Week study that tracked customer
satisfaction (or rather dissatisfaction) in a number of major mergers
over the past five or six years, including Bank One's purchase of First
Chicago Bank, Unilever's acquisition of BestFoods, and BP's takeover of
Amoco.. In the majority of cases surveyed, the customers were
disgruntled, even years later.
As the article puts it:
The frustration is worse with mergers in industries whose
services have the most direct influence on the quality of Americans'
daily lives. Oil companies, cable-TV outfits, and retail stores saw
their satisfaction ratings plunge between 5.3% and 7.4% on average…And
the effects can prove to be long-lasting. Five years after SBC
Communications Inc. bought Ameritech Corp. for $70 billion in 1999, its
customers still say they were less satisfied than before the merger.
The reason is simple. Mergers tend to cost a lot of new debt, and
cost-cutting measures are the order of the day. One of the first things
that go out the window is customer service, rarely perceived as
important as direct profit centers. When companies talk about reducing
wateful overhead through a merger, customer service is a major part of
that overhead.
And the confusion, complex integration of infrastructure including
computer systems, and low morale that often follows inevitable layoffs,
these make it all the harder to serve existing customers. In industries
like banking, the expectation is that over 10% of customers will leave
after a merger, based on their frustration. Even in industries like
cable TV, unhappy customers look for alternatives like satellite TV.
Victims of bad telephone service have fewer alternatives.
While
companies always claim they are making the acquisition to benefit their
clients, in most cases, the reality is quite otherwise. [Oligopoly Watch
In general, customers get a raw deal when companies merge. That's the conclusion of a Business Week article with the provocative title “Why Customers Hate Mergers” (12/6/2004). The article is based on a University of Michigan/Business Week study that tracked customer satisfaction (or rather dissatisfaction) in a number of major mergers over the past five or six years, including Bank One's purchase of First Chicago Bank, Unilever's acquisition of BestFoods, and BP's takeover of Amoco.. In the majority of cases surveyed, the customers were disgruntled, even years later.
As the article puts it:
The frustration is worse with mergers in industries whose services have the most direct influence on the quality of Americans' daily lives. Oil companies, cable-TV outfits, and retail stores saw their satisfaction ratings plunge between 5.3% and 7.4% on average…And the effects can prove to be long-lasting. Five years after SBC Communications Inc. bought Ameritech Corp. for $70 billion in 1999, its customers still say they were less satisfied than before the merger.
While companies always claim they are making the acquisition to benefit their clients, in most cases, the reality is quite otherwise. [Oligopoly Watch
Mergers and customer dissatisfaction In general, customers get a raw deal when companies merge. That's the conclusion of a Business Week article with the provocative title “Why Customers Hate Mergers” (12/6/2004). The article is based on a University of Michigan/Business Week study that tracked customer satisfaction (or rather dissatisfaction) in a number of major mergers… Continue reading
Mergers and customer dissatisfaction
In
general, customers get a raw deal when companies merge. That's the
conclusion of a Business Week article with the provocative title “Why
Customers Hate Mergers” (12/6/2004). The article is based on a
University of Michigan/Business Week study that tracked customer
satisfaction (or rather dissatisfaction) in a number of major mergers
over the past five or six years, including Bank One's purchase of First
Chicago Bank, Unilever's acquisition of BestFoods, and BP's takeover of
Amoco.. In the majority of cases surveyed, the customers were
disgruntled, even years later.
As the article puts it:
The frustration is worse with mergers in industries whose
services have the most direct influence on the quality of Americans'
daily lives. Oil companies, cable-TV outfits, and retail stores saw
their satisfaction ratings plunge between 5.3% and 7.4% on average…And
the effects can prove to be long-lasting. Five years after SBC
Communications Inc. bought Ameritech Corp. for $70 billion in 1999, its
customers still say they were less satisfied than before the merger.
The reason is simple. Mergers tend to cost a lot of new debt, and
cost-cutting measures are the order of the day. One of the first things
that go out the window is customer service, rarely perceived as
important as direct profit centers. When companies talk about reducing
wateful overhead through a merger, customer service is a major part of
that overhead.
And the confusion, complex integration of infrastructure including
computer systems, and low morale that often follows inevitable layoffs,
these make it all the harder to serve existing customers. In industries
like banking, the expectation is that over 10% of customers will leave
after a merger, based on their frustration. Even in industries like
cable TV, unhappy customers look for alternatives like satellite TV.
Victims of bad telephone service have fewer alternatives.
While
companies always claim they are making the acquisition to benefit their
clients, in most cases, the reality is quite otherwise. [Oligopoly Watch